Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futurist, gritty transreal urban style DC and is full of dark secrets
Contains: Very Strong Bloody Violence and Language, Strong Horror, Sex References, Threat and Gore
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Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game that takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse devastated the world and wiped out nearly all of mankind.
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STORY - 2/5
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Fallout 3 takes place in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futurist, gritty transreal urban style Washington D.C., northeast Virginia and parts of Maryland in the year 2277 after a world war over resources which ended in a nuclear holocaust in 2077. Many people before the apocalypse were organised into huge underground shelters, known as Vaults. You are born in Vault 101, and are told that no-one ever enters from the outside world, and that no-one ever leaves. However, your father leaves the vault under mysterious circumstances without saying why… or goodbye.
The Vault Overseer becomes suspicious and orders his men to kill anyone who had any cooperation with your father's escape, forcing you to go out into the Capital Wasteland where you must follow your father's trail and learn why he left so hastily, and for what cause that could be so important to leave his son behind. Along the way, the player will encounter various factions, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a techno-religious organization with roots in the U.S. military from the American West Coast; the Outcasts, a group of Brotherhood of Steel exiles; the Enclave, the elitist and genocidal remnants of the U.S. government, aswell as all the other horrific dangerous of the now radiated and hostile wasteland.
The post-apocalyptic setting is fantastic, but the actual plot of following your father's footsteps has a lot to be desired, and isn't really compelling in any way that will get your heart pumping or your brain whirring with enthusiasm.
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CHARACTERS - 2/5
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Along your dangerous and fascinating journey through the wasteland you'll encounter many human survivors that can assist you, friendly and hostile, mutated and human, and even bloodthirsty vampires and zombies, each with the ability to speak to you about some sort of problem they need sorting out or to do some trading on your travels. Problem is, many of the characters you meet will sound familiar, which is because the same voice actors are used over and over again but with different tones, and so sometimes its quite easy to start mistaking people for someone else. Its unfortunate there weren't many voice actors taken on by Bathesda to give every character their own likeness, but it isn't a hugely disappointing and lacking feature that's worth complaining about. Your father is voiced by Liam Neeson, and makes your Dad a likeable figure set apart from everyone else. Conversations between you and another character are always entertaining, since there is such a wide range of vocabulary to choose from, and give your own character a status in the situation. A lot of what you say will lead to a similar conclusion but just worded differently, however, some speech options you pick will have a big effect on you or the other character. If you be rude, then the other person may end the conversation altogether, some with huge effects on the storyline, and if you are extremely nice you may get a small benefit when the conversation finishes. Another example is speech challenges, where a special speech option opens up with a percentage showing how likely you are to succeed with it. The more powerful and demanding the speech, the lower the percent will be, and it's a big choice you'll have to make, as succeeding will no doubt have a big reward, but failing could mean hostility opens up between the two of you. Never-the-less, negotiating with people is a fun gameplay implementation that will occur frequently throughout the storyline, and also along your quest of discovery in such a huge open world with lots to find, speak to, and kill.
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GAMEPLAY - 5/5
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Fallout 3 has an attribute and combat system typical of an action strategy game but also incorporates elements of first-person shooter and survival horror games, and is best played from its First-Person perspective for a much more enjoyable and fluent experience. The Capital Wasteland is massive, and since the nuclear fallout, it is inhabited by a number of mutated creatures, ghouls, super mutants and raiders, aswell as other human survivors who live in settlements scattered all over. Once you get out into the wasteland, you are free to explore what you want, when you want, and this is probably the best thing about Fallout 3. You start off as you'd expect with low supplies and money, but if you take the necessary and recommended time to explore places, and complete quests for people, you'll rank up your level and you'll start filling your pockets with caps (the game's form of currency). Levelling up allows you to progress and develop your character how you want, select perks, add points to certain attributes and upgrade your primary skills. There are lots of options when you level up, and many advantages to various perks which all depend on what you prefer your character to have and what will be of more use to you throughout the game. Perks require certain levels, and sometimes it requires a certain statistic or karma level to have before you can select it.
Another major statistic in the game is karma. You start off with neutral karma, but on your way, you will be making decisions and performing actions that will alter it. Positive actions include freeing captives and helping people, negative actions include killing innocent people and stealing items. Your karma is like a pendulum that will swing back and forth between good and bad, and your karma will have certain influences on how other people respect you, and alter dialogue options unavailable in a different karma. It has tangible effects on the player, primarily the outcome of the game's ending, and maintaining relationships with important characters is certainly recommended.
When you're out and about exploring in the capital wasteland, there will be many containers full of items worth having, some will be locked and will require a short mini-game to unlock, and depending on how high your lock picking skill is, you may or may not be able to attempt to pick the lock. The same goes for various terminals that require a password to gain access to a locked room. Exploring is highly addicting and enjoyable, but the game isn't just a pleasant roam around gaining supplies. Fallout 3 is incredibly violent and gory when it comes to the combat, and regular shooting will prove a bit clunky, but when it comes to the action you have access to a very unique gameplay mechanic called VATS. Real-time combat is paused, and you have a certain amount of action points to use (which can be upgraded for more as the game progresses). You can target specific limbs on your enemies, bigger weapons require more action points than smaller weapons, but once you've selected the limb to shoot at, the game takes control and goes into a cinematic mode which has many various angles to watch your bullets strike your enemies. There is a percent when in VATS which shows the chances of hitting that body part, and when you completely damage the limb of your opponent a very gory animation is shown, and all sorts of limbs can be dismembered from enemies like this. The explosion of brain matter is a satisfying view, and the slow motion bullet time effects of the cinematic make the combat gruesomely entertaining whatever the perspective is. VATS doesn't have to be used just to blow heads off, but to also gain advantages in the thick of the fight. Crippling an enemies leg causes them to move slower, crippling the head causes disorientating effects and poor accuracy, and shooting arms forces them to drop their weapon and be completely vulnerable. Long range combat will prove troublesome though. As you'd expect the percent of chance to hit enemies is obviously going to be lower, but even with a sniper rifle you'll receive virtually the same percent as a pistol, which is unfortunate. Enemies can do exactly the same to you though by using VATS, which brings me to the health description. Your health is separated into two types: the general health bar, which can be replenished with food and healing items, and limb damage, where you can have decreased abilities if a specific limb takes too much damage, and you have to heal it directly. There is also another factor that can alter your performance, which is radiation. The capital wasteland is full of radiated spots, and there are many irradiated food and drink sources aswell which will have negative influences on your abilities. If you take in too much radiation you will suffer effects from it, and if you don't take any medicine you'll eventually die from severe poisoning.
Weapon degradation plays a large part in the game too and is actually a pain at times as some of the more expensive weapons can really drain your money count from which you may have a healthy amount. If a weapon is used frequently it will start decreasing in damage, and if you don't take it to someone who can fix them, they will eventually be rendered useless. Schematics of unique weapons can be found through exploration and can be made with the correct items and objects needed at a workbench. Everything you pick up or wear has a weight statistic and you need to be aware of how much you're carrying since you can only carry a certain amount of stuff. The more you have, the slower you'll move. All this is a lot to take in, and playing the game is your best bet of completely understanding everything, because this role-playing game is jam-packed with content that shouldn't be missed or misunderstood.
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GRAPHICS - 3/5
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Fallout 3 doesn't look great to look at, there are many low texture resolutions, frame rate stutters, screen tearing, and a whole cast of glitches scattered around. However, what makes Fallout 3 such a stunning game, is its outstanding art design that makes such a desolate looking DC, where the apocalyptic disaster is so believable. Building designs are often repeated, but the imaginative skill gone into producing such a horrific and abandoned wasteland is something to take away from the game altogether. Gore looks realistic as chunks of flesh get splattered after a damaging blow, and creature and weapon designs are also impressive and give a good feel to the lacklustre graphics themselves.
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SOUND - 4/5
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There's various radio signals which have been broadcast across the capital wasteland which feature many old songs, and at points highlight some of the activities you've been doing in the wasteland with a news briefing. But listening to the radio only spoils the soundtrack evident ever so slightly and quietly in the background of the gameplay, which casts a really lonely feel across proceedings. But that lonely feeling is made in a positive way of being engaged with the disaster, and really making you think how possible it could actually be in real life and what the consequences in the aftermath could be like.
Voice acting isn't too bad, but hearing the same voices over and over can become pretty dull after a while, but Liam Neeson is a great addition to a cast of unrecognisable actors, and really makes his part as important as it deserves to be. Sound effects of weapons are also not too bad, but sometimes weapons can sound out of place, mainly because of the stuttering frame rate that happens more often that you'd expect it to, but the blood splattering noises of exploding limbs is always a delightful yet disturbing sound.
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CONTROLS - 3/5
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There is a lot to learn in Fallout 3, and the large control layout is one of them. Once you get used to the game it will come as second nature, but at first it can prove a struggling task knowing each and every possible outcome from pressing a button which can then open up new meanings, for instance when you enter VATS mode, buttons do different things than when outside it, and so getting to know the configurations will take some time. There isn't really an aim down the sights option either, since holding L1 just simply zooms in to the background slightly, rather than actually providing an advantage for you in combat.
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ATMOSPHERE - 5/5
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The apocalyptic destruction emits a really lonely feel upon the open ended wasteland, and when you're not battling raiders for supplies or mutants to free captives, you'll be constantly surrounded by an engaging atmosphere that really makes you feel isolated in a decaying world, and also send chills down your spine. Having the radio on prevents the feelings of isolation, nervous tension and fuelled adrenaline, and the soundtrack in the background is ever so slight, but has a really heavy impact on the gameplay and your mind, and so the obvious recommendation here is - Don't listen to the radio signals unless you want a heads up on the news. The feeling of being alone comes from the deserted environments, the nervous tension arises from the gurgled screams of ghouls that inhabit the underground subway, and the fuelled adrenaline will surface when you are in unlikely surviving situations against all sorts of horribly deformed and unrecognisable creatures. Fallout 3 has an atmosphere that is really incredible, not only the feelings that can possess your thoughts, but the fact that a nuclear fallout is so believable.
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ENEMY AI - 2/5
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There are so many variations and physical forms of enemies, and the designs of each type is impressive and chilling in some cases, but maybe the nuclear apocalypse had an effect on basic logic for some of these vicious opponents. They all attack with unrelenting force, and won't stop until you're dead, or you've blown them into oblivion, but this is their major flaw - they don't stop at all. Once they've set you in their sights they'll continuously pursue you, and even walk onto a land mine that they saw you drop in front of them. Human enemies and super mutants will fire clip after clip of ammunition even if you're behind cover. The smaller creatures will scurry around after you hoping to either poison you or consume your flesh, and while its obvious these techniques work for this type of game, it doesn't change the fact that when it comes to the defensive, these enemies are completely useless. Enemies with guns will quite happily stand in the open and shoot, rarely taking cover, and smaller creatures even when near death won't turn in the opposite direction and retreat back where they came from.
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LENGTH - 5/5
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The addicting gameplay and exploration can take away huge chunks of your social life if you're not careful, but once you get involved with Fallout 3 its difficult to stop. The story missions can all be completed within about 15 hours, but that's not the way the game wants you to play. If you take time in exploring, levelling up and completing a variety of optional quests, it's pretty easy to clock in up to 100 hours or more of game time. Its a very long game, but a very good one that is worth the patience and commitment in playing the game the way it was meant to be played.
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REPLAY VALUE - 5/5
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You may complete Fallout 3 in a very respectable time of 100 hours, but if you started the game from scratch straight away, its very easy to play a completely different game with a similar amount of time. The quests can be completed in various ways and approached from different angles, taking the other karma path will change dialogue and mission conclusions, you can explore places you never explored previously, and alter your characters appearance and perks to a completely different set than before. All these will change a lot of your playthrough, and even though its an open world game, the chances are you'll never explore a lot of locations, even after many playthroughs, and this factor is what truly makes Fallout 3 an amazing and addictive experience. A perilous journey through a nuclear wasteland which is controlled by some of your worst nightmares with the ultimate shooting assistance from VATS is worth every minute of your time, whether you're evil or good, benefits and enjoyment is guaranteed.
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 9/10
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Good Points: Huge variety of quests with numerous ways to approach and complete them, VATS combat system provides lots of enjoyable and gruesome encounters, Outstanding art design makes for a desolate DC, Atmosphere and soundtrack really emits a lonely feel to the apocalyptic open world design, Extremely addictive and rewarding gameplay, Loads of options when creating and levelling up your character.
Bad Points: Long distance combat can be difficult, Lots of gameplay and visual glitches, Framerate and freezing issues can hamper the fun.